I'm not sure exactly what information you want to get out of the system but quite a bit is available through the XML generators. I'm currently using these to create my own newest nodes interface (login version, no login version). Part of this project is to keep a local cache of node header information in a PostgreSQL database. You should be able to get at most of the information you want this way. Just don't beat on the server by asking for all 237,000 nodes at once and try to grab information during off peak hours.

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print map { my ($m)=1<<hex($_)&11?' ':'';
$m.=substr('AHJPacehklnorstu',hex($_),1) }
split //,'2fde0abe76c36c914586c';
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